Interview about ebook piracy on Spark (CBC Radio)

[Nate the great]

The subject of the interview is Gabriella Coleman, an assistant professor at New York University. The interviewer is Nora Young. They talked about why online book piracy is poised to shake up the book biz, and what smart publishers can do to stop it. You can listen to it here, or download the 21 minute interview as a MP3.

It's worth a listen.

[Moejoe]

Thanks, very interesting interview

[zerospinboson]

The interviewee seems to be missing a fairly big point, though. Those sites Coleman refers to (both the one she names and the other one she talks about) have an enormous number of users who come from Iran, India, China, South-America, Russia.. The issue with them getting these (mostly academic) titles isn't primarily about whether they are or aren't paying for books they think are too expensive. Rather, it is mostly about getting access to books at all; access that people from those countries either couldn't have gotten due to import restrictions or never could never have conceivably afforded.
Sure, you might also call that "piracy", but I would suggest that there are way too many differences between The West and elsewhere to meaningfully compare them.

Anyway, thanks for the link
It's at least more about what kind of people are these strange users who read Deleuze & Guattari, Blanchot etc. are, and about how academic authors might even appreciate becoming more available to a broader audience, than it is about Rowling would be justified in whining about how she's missing out on .07% of her yearly royalties.